Scepticism in Philosophy
Philosophical scepticism is a school of thought where we examine if we actually have any true knowledge and perceptions. It can range from doubting philosophical solutions to our existence, to rejecting the reality around us, and suspecting that nothing is real.
Philosophical scepticism can be traced back to ancient times. Sophist Gorgias claimed that nothing exists, and if something does exist, I cannot be known. Gorgias suggest this around 2599 years ago, showing that this is not a modern philosophical view. However, Gorgias is more referred to as a “Sophist” and most philosophers believe that Pyrrho was the first real philosophical sceptic in the western world around 80 years after Gorgias. A very famous philosopher who was a sceptic was Socrates, he frequently said “skepteon” meaning to investigate, and claiming that the only thing he knew was that he knew nothing. Another philosopher who is renowned for his sceptic think is Descartes, and that’s who we will focus in this essay as he had a very interesting way of defeating his scepticism.
In Descartes first meditation, he begins to break down life as he knows, he states he wants to “start again from the foundations” and test himself and his senses to establish “something firm and constant”. To do this he sweep away all prior knowledge, and subject all his beliefs to doubt in order to uncover beliefs which cannot be doubted. What Descartes proposed to do was a very new and interesting tool; he thought that if he doubted everything, his surroundings, his senses, his knowledge, even his God, that he would find something certain, something that is defiantly true.
The Essay on Socrates on Oratory, Desire, Power, and Good in Gorgias 447a-468e
To critically assess the language of Socrates within the work Gorgias, a look will be taken at the key steps to refutation and how Gorgias, and later Polus, may have failed in his attempt, and further, how Socrates makes the argument that tyrants, like orators or politicians, have no real power and that they are unable to act upon their own desires because they are crippled by the very power that ...
Descartes has a very harsh way of dealing with classifying which of his beliefs are false, he says that he doesn’t not need to prove that something is 100% false in order to make it false, instead he says that anything that he can doubt even in the slightest will be treated as false. This meant that he would reject many, if not all his prior knowledge, so he really was starting over again in order to defeat philosophical scepticism.
Descartes uses three ways to go about destroying his belief system. The first is doubting his senses. Descartes establishes that he has been deceived by his sense many times, he explains how people from a distance look tiny, yet we know there normal human size and that he has found many errors of judgment based on the external sense. Because of this he can no longer trust his senses for “it is prudent never to trust entirely on those that have once deceived us”.
The second is the dreaming argument. Descartes says that in his previous argument he is only deceived by things a great distance away from him, but surely we can’t be deceived of the things right in front of us? Unless, there are no things in front of us and there all created by our imaginations in one, eternal dream. He explains how he has had dreams where he has been in the exact same position he’s in while he is writing his meditation; in a chair in front of the fire, yet he knows that in reality he is lying asleep in his bed. When he is in his dream he is convinced it’s real, so what is to say that reality as we know it isn’t real? That it is all one big dream? And this argument destroyers almost every belief as if your dreaming it, it cannot be real.
The third and final argument is Descartes suggestion that there is an “evil demon” that is deceiving him of all the things around him, that this demon is giving him false senses and beliefs.
But through all this, Descartes manages to find one, undoubtable thing. He says that even if he is dreaming, even if he is being deceived, there still need to be something real, and un doubtable that is being deceived. If he’s dreaming there must be some kind of real brain or something this is producing his dream thoughts, if theres and evil demon, the demon must have something real that he is tricking. And from this comes Descartes famous statement-“I think, therefore I am”
The Essay on What Is Real False Things Believes
What do Plato, Descartes, and Hobbes contribute to the question "how do we know what is true, and what is false?" In the allegory of the cave, Plato views the sunlight as the truth, and the shadows in the cave as being false, and his contribution to the question "how can we tell what is true, and what is false" is that we have no way of knowing what is true, and what is false, until we have ...